Friday, November 29, 2013

Today I'm featuring three of my newest holiday items available in my shops.

New Christmas Ornaments

I have been doing somewhat okay with attaining my goal of making some extra time each week to stitch up a few non-custom Christmas ornaments for my shop. These two are nearly identical in in size, color, fabric and finishing which made the process so much easier. Thank you to my lovely sponsors for sending me these great patterns!

I am so happy that my "Will Work for Cookies" ornament was featured in the Cookies for Christmas treasury curated by Anny. There are some great items in this treasury. I especially love the Santa plate and mug -- so clever!

Believe Christmas Tin

I had found a few of these Christmas tins at a local shop in town and bought a bunch in advance just because I loved the fact that they weren't the traditional round tins (not that anything is wrong with them) that made them slightly more unique. Being that this tin featured Poinsettias, I went with a pattern that included one and chose colors that matched as best as possible.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

This year I'm so grateful for so many things - one of them being all of the great people I have met this past year through my art. Whether it be my peers, customers, sponsors or team members, I can't tell you how much I appreciate the dozens of e-mails I receive each day from all of you, and the lovely notes you send. You make it all the more special!

I hope all of you enjoy a safe and happy Thanksgiving day with your family and friends.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Being a designer of handmade greeting cards, I used to agonize over whether or not to include greeting card verses or sentiments on the inside of my cards, or if I should leave them blank. I was terrified that leaving cards with no inside message told my customers I was lazy, uncreative or just downright uninterested, but that just wasn't the case. I just didn't want to create barriers for my customers when there didn't need to be.

So, roughly two years ago I set up a poll on my website and blog and sent some of my most frequent customers a survey of their preference towards handmade greeting cards having or not having inside messages. I was shocked that an overwhelming 82% would rather their handmade cards be left blank inside. Since then, I designed all of my handmade greeting cards to be left blank inside for individuals to leave their own messages, verses and sentiments and felt pretty good about it.

Until the other 18% resurfaced... :)

To this day, many, if not all of my custom orders for greeting cards DO request that the inside of their cards have a sentiment, and more likely than not, they tell me to choose --- which can be even more agonizing in the middle of the creative process. To help me get through it, I compiled a list of greeting card sentiments and verses in various categories. These lists can be found in two of my hubs:

Hopefully these hubs will not only be helpful to those of you looking for the perfect message to write in your greeting cards but to my peer-designers who come across this sometimes-frustrating task in the midst of their creative process. Enjoy!

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Woke up this morning feeling very productive! I completed nine new, non-custom items and then re-organized my supplies and inventory until 1 a.m. This time a year gets really crazy and for someone who needs organization to function, I was feeling quite anxious with the amount of supplies and to-finish items I had all over the place. I even took my pictures of my shipping station which I'll share later this week just to document how bad I let it my studio get this time. I am a mess!

I have a few items I need to finish today for some dear customers and then I'll work on listing some new items this week. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

I've been frantically working on some new finishes for my shop this week. In the midst of pine needles, garland, bows and glitter, I was finally able to put these new items to rest. I find that my mini-OCD tends to make me spend way too much time fiddling and re-fiddling, so I just decided to take photos and walk away before I start taking things apart and putting them back together!

Here is a sampling of some of my newest finishes. I'll be listing them this week.

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